Mark Halle

Mark Halle is the Executive Director of the International Institute for Sustainable Development-Europe (IISD-Europe) and Director of its Trade and Investment Programme. Previously, he was Director of the IUCN’s Global Policy Division based in Switzerland. His involvement in the preparation and launch of the World Conservation Strategy on behalf of UNEP led to close contact with WWF and IUCN. He joined WWF as Conservation Officer in 1980, moving to IUCN in 1983. From 1983 to 1987, he was Assistant, then Deputy Director of the Conservation for Development Centre (CDC) of IUCN became Director in 1987. He was responsible for all personnel and operations in the field including IUCN’s growing network of regional and country offices. In 1990, he became Director of Development and, in 1993, became Director of Global Policy.

GTI Contributions

Perspectives

World Trade: A New Direction

January 2010

Global trade negotiations are moribund, with the World Trade Organization’s agenda stalled and the neoliberal ideology it serves confronted by a rising chorus of criticism. The trading system, built on the premise that promoting commercial interests necessarily advances the general interest, instead has fed a multifaceted planetary crisis. At this juncture, trade policy must find a new way forward. The key to this change lies in reversing the priority that in the past made free trade an end in itself, thereby consigning the larger goal of sustainable development to an afterthought. From now on, economic, social, and environmental sustainability goals should set the criteria for designing and applying multilateral trade rules. We suggest concrete steps to help transform the WTO from an agent of privilege and profit into a force for an equitable, peaceful, and resilient world.

Paper Series

Trading into the Future: Rounding the Corner to Sustainable Development

Mark Halle explores the assumptions underlying the architecture of the multilateral trade regime and how it has both delivered and failed to deliver on the various promises of trade theory. He argues that sustainable development can be achieved by a more rigorous enforcement of and commitment to—rather than abandonment of—the espoused principles. He concludes by analyzing how trade would function in the three archetypal regions imagined in the Great Transition.